Two victims from crash identified

Coroner says medical condition likely cause

February 6, 2013

The crash that killed an Altoona couple was likely the result of a medical condition, according to Blair County Coroner Patricia Ross.

Ross said Walter Lynam, 82, had medical issues that indicate he was incapacitated when the Mercury Grand Marquis he was driving Monday afternoon traveled through a stop sign at 31st Street and Union Avenue and struck another vehicle.

Lynam and his wife Patricia Lynam, 78, died instantly as a result of the crash, Ross said.

Two men in the pickup truck, whose names have not been released, suffered non-life threatening injuries and were taken to Altoona Regional, police said.

"Something must have happened to him to have him race down 31st Street and run a stop sign," Ross said, adding that investigators will never know the underlying cause of the accident.

An Altoona police accident reconstructionist is still working on the case, police said Tuesday.

Walter Lynam retired in 2009 from the Carpet Warehouse of Altoona, a business he opened in 1955. He knew the neighborhood well and was a competent driver, his son Dennis Lynam said Tuesday.

Dennis Lynam said the family is still in shock but holding up as well as can be expected.

"He was definitely my best friend," Dennis Lynam, who has worked in the family business with his father his entire adult life, said. "We were very, very close."

He said his mother, a homemaker, was selfless.

"She was everything you would want a mother to be," he said. "She was beautiful."

The couple had just celebrated their 62nd wedding anniversary on Sunday and have five children - two boys and three girls - along with 16 grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren.

Dennis Lynam said his father often showed off pictures of his next generation.

"He loved talking to people very much," said Dennis Lynam, who added that his father was also an avid Notre Dame fan who became known to many as "the candy man" for his habit of always carrying around pieces of candy to give out.

"In the line at the grocery store, at the bank - no matter where he went," Dennis Lynam said.